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Who's Who - Elsie Inglis

Elsie Maud Inglis (1864-1917),
the British suffragette and pioneer of medicine, established a
hospital fully staffed by women for use by the French government during the
First World War (the British government having earlier turned down an offer
of her services).

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Born in India in 1864
Inglis and her family returned to their former homeland of Scotland upon the
retirement of her father when she was 14, the family choosing to settle in
Edinburgh.

Having studied medicine at
the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women Inglis subsequently established
her own medical college (with the moral and financial backing of her
father). She qualified as a doctor and secured a teaching appointment at the
New Hospital for Women under the latter's founder, Elizabeth Garrett
Anderson. A keen suffragette Inglis was later to found her own
maternity hospital entirely staffed by women.

In 1906 Inglis played a
notable role in the establishment of the Scottish Women's Suffrage
Federation. The outbreak of war in Europe in August 1914 brought about
a temporary ceasefire where political - including suffragette - issues were
concerned, and Inglis promptly suggested the creation of women's medical
units on the Western Front.

The British government
reacted to Inglis's idea coolly however. Nevertheless a similar offer
made directly to the French government was warmly received and Inglis
travelled to France within three months of the outbreak of war, with the
Abbaye de Royaumont hospital, containing some 200 beds, in place by December
1914. This was later followed by a second hospital at Villers
Cotterets in 1917.

Inglis was active in
arranging for the despatch of women's units to other fighting areas aside
from the Western Front: to Serbia, Salonika, Romania, Malta and Corsica in
1915 and to Russia the following year.

Inglis herself served in
Serbia from 1915 until the Serbian government and army withdrew to Corfu
(Inglis earlier been captured for a period until U.S. diplomatic pressure
brought about her release). Thereafter based in Russia she was taken
ill and returned to England where she died on 26 November 1917 a day after
her arrival in Newcastle Upon Tyne.